Antonio
Looking back on his hectic morning, Antonio found it a tad short of a miracle that the three raiders had made it out of the house without waking Lovino. When he got back from this little scouting excursion, he reminded himself that would have to warn Lovino against sleeping so heavily. He took a deep breath of the sharp morning air, his arms swung freely at his sides and his rifle was strapped to his back. He carried an arrangement of small, leather satchels looped around his belt as his feet tread over the short patch of grass. The blades were wet from the morning dew, and they stuck to Antonio's softly padded boots as he strode over the patch.
The feel of the grass beneath his feet never really got old to Antonio. The tiny patches were a relatively new development; after a lifetime of sickly irradiated water, purification plants started popping up along all of the major waterways a few years back. Clean water now flowed through most of the country, inspiring new plant growth that had previously been impossible due to the malnourishment of the cruel land. They keep saying that it's only going to get even better from here as the new plant life adapts to the harsh land, and that eventually, patches of the brightly colored grass will sprout up all over, and the rolling hills around Radwater will look exactly like the pictures on the occasional ramshackle billboard.
Antonio stayed a few feet behind his other two friends as they argued over trivial matters, as was the norm. He started kicking a rock with his feet as he stepped back onto the broken asphalt of the ancient road leading out of town. He couldn't stop thinking about last night, but he couldn't be angry at Francis or Gilbert. After all, this was the kind of thing they did to each other all the time. Antonio found himself shaking his head. You can be patient, Antonio.
The small rock skidded across the pavement each time his foot knocked it forward. It was a pleasant distraction from the complicated thoughts that he was pushing to the back of his mind. He let himself listen to Francis' and Gilbert's heating argument instead.
"Are you kidding me? There's no way you took one down by yourself. I'm declaring some major bullshit on this."
"Ah, but that is where you are wrong, mon ami!"
"I mean, I could take down a deathclaw without a problem, heck, I could take down, like, three. But you? No way!"
Antonio laughed under his breath at the bickering friends. His rock rolled off of the road after an unceremonious kick in the wrong direction. Antonio frowned. Oh well, it wasn't worth stopping for, so he just kept walking. Maybe he would find another stone, but until then, he let his thought wonder back to last night, back to Lovino. The Spaniard wondered why he hadn't done it; they were so close that he could feel the shallow breaths puffing from Lovino's slightly parted lips. He remembered how those lips had glistened in the moonlight and how the music played just in time with the moment, why hadn't he just gone for it? Why hadn't he just taken Lovino like he desperately wanted to yet? He didn't need Lovino to agree with the situation; he'd done it before and he could do it again. But something about that though made Antonio suddenly sick to his stomach. He didn't want to force Lovino into loving him. Some part of him wanted Lovino to seek him out on his own, to want it, to beg for it, if Antonio was lucky. But unfortunately, luck didn't seem to be on his side last night when his demented friends showed up to stop them.
"What do you mean I couldn't?! You be seen me take down far huger monsters than a little bitty deathclaw. Those overgrown iguanas aren't even worth my superior skills anymore."
"Oh Gil, what could possibly be more of a challenge than a deathclaw?"
"Uh, behemoths? Duh."
"You've never taken down a behemoth!"
"I totally have! Remember that time we tried to take that "shortcut" to Birmingham and we stopped at that really suspicious bar and that weirdo freaky-guy said he'd give us like, a hundred caps to kill that behemoth?"
Francis cringed visibly. "Oui, I happen to remember that day in astonishing detail. I think I also remember you shouting insults at the beast until it started to chase after you, and then you proceeded to turn tail and run like a small child while Antonio and I covered your useless hide."
Antonio also remembered that day fairly well. It had not been pretty, and all they did was waste bullets on that behemoth. But hell if it wasn't hilarious watching Gilbert scream like a girl.
Gilbert drew one hand to his chest dramatically. "Why Francis, that never happened!" He cried mockingly. "You saw how brave and awesome I was when I took down that totally huge monster. I saw you see me, Francy-pants, I watched you watch me as I showed that mutated shit face who was boss. Isn't that right, Antonio?" Gilbert turned his head around to Antonio as he mentioned his name.
"Hey, don't bring me into this, Gil."
"Just tell me I'm right and loud-mouth Frenchie is so wrong."
Antonio looked from Francis' condescending eyes and back to Gilbert's confident expression. "Uhh, sí, whatever you say, amigo."
Francis rolled his eyes. "Foutaise."
Antonio zoned out as the argument continued in front of him. He looked to his left to see the sun rising just above the horizon, and the sky was clearing from its blue morning fog. They should be heading back to Radwater soon, they had a long journey ahead of them and Antonio didn't want to waste energy walking farther than he needed to on a simple scouting mission. So far, nothing had turned up to impede their progress, and Antonio wasn't even sure why he had come along in the first place. Scouting is easily done with two men, and the Spaniard had originally considered staying back with Lovino while the other two did all of the walking. But when questioned about his motives, he had replied with the excuse that he "just needed some fresh air". It was accepted without further questioning, and Antonio was grateful that he didn't have to explain that it was because he didn't want to be around when Lovino awoke.
Running away from your problems isn't going to get you anywhere, he told himself as he strapped pouches onto his belt just a short time ago. Wait, problem? Since when had Lovino become one of his problems? Oh, right, it must have been when Antonio realized that Lovino meant a little bit more to him than the couple of pretty village boys he'd come across in his travels.
His thoughts were interrupted by a loud, German accent cutting though his awareness.
"Okay, we're going back. Why the hell are we doing this, anyways? What's the point of walking all the way out here, turning around, and doing it again? There's no way this could be any sort of important."
Antonio opened his mouth to answer, but Francis beat him to it. "Don't be foolish, Gil. Of course this is of upmost importance!"
"Oh really? Give me one good reason to have dragged myself out here at the crack of dawn, in the cold." Francis obviously couldn't think of an answer.
"It's not even cold, stop complaining." Muttered Antonio, unable to answer the question either. When he thought of why he had brought himself out into the unforgiving wasteland, all that would come to his mind was Lovino. Lovino, pretty little vault-dweller that had shown light into crevice of his heart that he didn't even know was dark. Now that he had experienced the angry Italian's glow, he was in no way ready to let that light extinguish. He would do whatever it took to protect his light, even if that did mean hauling himself out of sleep to patrol the dank wasteland, despite the protests of his friends.
He was never going to admit that to Gilbert and Francis, however, so he had no reason to keep them going.
"But fine, I get it. We can head back now, if you really want."
"Finally!" Gilbert shouted and sped forward, pushing past Antonio to lead the group back to town. Antonio and Francis followed.
The air was warming in the shine of the rising sun, and the dew was drying from the sparse blades of grass. Antonio inhaled the heavy air of the dawning noon atmosphere as they swiftly marched towards Radwater. Something was heavy in the air, something nice, something new, and his gut told him that today was going to be a good day.
However, Antonio had learned long ago not to trust his gut.
Lovino
When Lovino was awoken by the soft sounds of morning chirping, Antonio and the others were gone. Of course, that was what he was expecting. He rubbed the palm of his hand into his forehead, clenching his eyes as he rubbed into them as well. His palm seemed to relieve a bit of the tension, so his aching head didn't throb as he hobbled to the small table on the other side of the room. As much as he wanted some coffee, he had no means of heating water that didn't require him to get up and move around excessively, which was something that he didn't want to do right now. So he compromised by simply sitting at the table with his arms crossed while he cast stares of longing at the container of instant coffee on the counter. Getting up this early wasn't preferable to the Italian, but the incessant chirping from the birds outside could easily do the job of any alarm clock that would sound at about this time back in the vault. Even now, awake at the crack of dawn, he still did not miss the vault life that he had recently left.
Sure, it had its pros, coffee, quiet nights, warm nights... With heat as smoldering as it was during the day, it was surprising how chilling the nights could be. But life in his vault also had some major cons, the biggest at this point being the extensive deficit of a certain Spaniard. At some point, Antonio had undeniably become the center of Lovino's world. Lovi didn't exactly know when, or why, or even how... All he could do was credit Antonio's annoying laugh, his dumb smile, his perfect laugh and his breathtaking smile...
Lovino shook his head, as if he could physically clear out the complicated thoughts and replace them with simple, productive ones. He was at a sort of loss, sitting at the table like he was. Lovino wasn't sure what to do with the time that the three adventures had left him with, besides sit and wait for the trio to return from their little outing. Despite having the opportunity to relax, Lovino's muscles felt restless. Throughout the week, he'd had very few chances to waste time. So doing so felt like, well... a waste of time. Lovino grunted out a soft chuckle, thinking back to his everyday vault life and realizing that all of it was a waste of time.
The longer the thought on it, the more restless he became. He stood up, making his chair scoot along the wooden floor. His hand reached to where his gun would normally be situated on his back, and when it wasn't, his stomach jolted slightly. He swiveled around, afraid that he may have lost it the night before when... oh. Memories of last night surfaced, and Lovino visibly winced. How embarrassing. He pushed the thoughts back as he spotted his rifle leaning against the arm of the couch, but the gnawing embarrassment never left his chest. He looked to the door and then back to the weapon.
Do I really have to keep that thing strapped to my body at all hours of the day? He remembered Antonio scolding him each time he tried to go somewhere without his gun, and the thought of taking a morning stroll without it was looking better and better. Antonio wasn't there to treat him like a child, so why the hell not. Lovino decided that he was spending too much time thinking and less time moving. He padded out of the door and along the river without sparing a second thought for his shiny, black rifle.
Why he thought that going right to his rock was a good idea was beyond the Italian. Stopping at the base of it, he looked over the clear flat surface, and beyond that to the low, smooth current of the wide river. Before he could address the pangs of uneasiness that were washing over him, he heard the unfamiliar sound of tires screeching over rough gravel. Swiveling around on the ball of his foot, he planted his heel in the dirt and reached desperately at his rifle. Right, he had left the damn thing behind. The truck sped towards him, a dark green color as the tires wore out the meager road. It was only seconds before the truck halted just a few feet ahead of him, screeching into a sharp u-turn so that the bed of the truck faced Lovino. The dust that the truck had kicked up made Lovino cough, fear setting in when he realized that he was defenseless against these potentially dangerous new strangers.
Lovino spotted three blurry shapes in the bed of the truck with his wide, fearful eyes. A loud shout came from one of the shapes, but Lovino barely heard it through the confusion of the sudden truck. The shapes began to clear, and the first thing that Lovino noticed about the strangers was the determined smirk planted on the face of the one who had shouted. His eyes darted to the second shape, the tallest figure that stood in the bed of this strange truck. He was leaning against the wooden boards mounted on the edges of the truck's bed, and in his arms rested a massive metal contraption. Lovino only got a brief look of the man's intimidating poker face before blinding energy shot from the nose of the metal weapon he carried.
Lovino's focus on the world around him dulled as he was struck with the pure energy. His consciousness retreated to some crevice of his mind when the ground started spinning beneath his feet. Not just the ground was spinning; as he glanced around the bank of the river, the dead trees danced and the sky convexed and distorted. His head felt light and he began to float away, or was he falling? The spinning ground had made a reappearance startlingly close to his face and Lovino realized that he had hit the ground at some point. His head rolled to the convex sky and he was vaguely aware of the smirk on one of the stranger's faces that looked down at him. Voices echoed around him as sensations clawed at his skin, the feel of gravel on his back and metal slipping around his neck made him chuckle lightly. Hands hauled him to his feet as his world whizzed through his field of vision, and before he knew it, the rough hands had moved him into the bed of the truck. Was he moving? He couldn't tell. His vision narrowed and eventually blackened as the hard surface beneath his head roared loudly and strange accents bounced around above him. Everything faded as the effects of the energy blast began ebbing away, and unconsciousness overtook Lovino.
Lovino's awareness returned slowly, at first, all he knew was the roar of the truck's engine. A weight rested against his collarbones, cold and heavy around his neck. The feeling was uncomfortable and unfamiliar, and he attempted to reach up to feel the strange weight that plagued his limited awareness. He tried to lift his hand to his neck when he realized that his hands were bound together. His eyes cracked open as he brought both hands the collar that rested around his neck. The metal was thick and heavy and terrible. Lovino wanted it off.
His eyes widened all the way when he realized his exact predicament. It had happened so quickly, he barely had time to react. This is what Antonio had warned him against, what Antonio had been teaching him to avoid for nearly a week now. He should have known better, he should have taken that rifle with him, not that it would have made a difference against the one, two... three men that were stationed in the bed of the truck. Someone had to drive the truck, and someone would be seated in the passenger seat, if Lovino could see it from his position sitting on the floor of the truck. He counted five men total, if his assumptions were correct.
Two of the men on front of him were both tall and blond, each intimidating in their own ways. One stood in the truck bed, leaning against the wooden supports, a rifle thrown over his shoulder and a smirk on his face as he gazed out the back of the moving truck. His blond hair blew wildly in the chilling winds. Another man, his face somber and menacingly plain, sat against the side of the truck, his terrifying eyes on the third stranger.
This man, who was more of a boy, sat on the edge of the truck with his legs dangling over the edge. Lovino couldn't see his face, but he noticed that the boy had a metal collar around his neck not unlike his own. Lovino struggled against his bonds, accidentally grunting in pain when the rope's fibers burned again at his skin.
The man who stood just a few feet from Lovino looked over his shoulder at the sound of Lovino's grunts to see what he was getting into. Lovi paused immediately when his eyes met the stranger's playful ones.
"Look who's finally awake, guys!" The tall blond man shouted playfully, turning in the truck and separating himself from his wooden support. The other strangers turned their heads to face Lovino, the scary one barely looked interested, but the boy's eyes had lit up when they directed themselves at the captive Italian.
"The vault-dweller came to?" This voice was soft, and it floated out from inside the truck through the open space where the back windshield should be.
"I thought you never were going to be waking up! Hi, My name's Tino, but everyone calls me Finny. Or Fin. Or Finland. It's because of my accent, really, heh heh... What's your name?" The question came from the boy, who had pulled himself completely into the truck to assault Lovino with words.
He wrinkled his nose at the strange accents this bunch had, Finny's being the post peculiar so far.
"Hey Fin, don't get attached to that guy. You know what's going to happen."
"Oh let him do what he wants, Den. It'll be his fault that he's torn up after the vault-dweller gets shipped off." It was the soft voice from inside the truck again.
Questions raced through Lovino's head, but he forced himself to remain quiet. He forced himself not to think about where he was going or what the hell was going on. His blood pumped quickly through his veins and he felt like passing out. The collar around Finny's neck matched his own as far as he could tell, so he wondered how the boy could act so uppity. Was he in the same boat as Lovino? Surely he couldn't be.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Okay, so, here's the rundown, little vault-dweller. You're a slave now. You're property. Blah blah blah, I'm supposed to give you a speech about it but I'm not gonna because I've said it way too many times." Lovino's stomach flipped as the words sank in. A slave? His blood froze in place and his limbs stiffened when he was informed of his new occupation. He had to get out, he had to get away, he had to... Antonio! Antonio would save him, he was sure of it...
"Oh, and the collar, that one there, it'll explode if you try to escape ever." Well there went that. Lovino kept himself calm, fighting back tears as he cast his eyes towards the bonds around his wrists. He was surprisingly okay right now, as if he knew that the news wasn't real, that this was a dream. It had to be a dream. There was no other way, right?
Lovino knew better. Still, the situation held an unreal quality that made the information easy to accept. So his Antonio is gone again, after Lovino waited a year for him to return to his vault? Go figure.
"Any questions?"
Of course Lovino had questions. But he didn't feel like speaking. He didn't feel like anything, actually. In fact, the lack of feeling is probably what disturbed him the most. Where was the anger? Where was the fear? Lovino felt only a calming numbness as he sat in the bed of the truck, shaking his head in answer to the question that he had been asked.
"Good. And, between you and us, we're really sorry. Something's got to put food on the table, you know? Nothing personal."
Lovino just kept his eyes fixed on his bindings.
Throughout the bumpy, uncomfortable ride, Lovino didn't think about the "what ifs". What if this was the end of the line for him. What if the rest of his life was spent with a suffocating collar clasped around his neck, a constant reminder of his place. It rubbed painfully into his skin with every sharp turn of the head, always telling him that he had been reduced to the lowest part of the dysfunctional society of the wasteland. And most importantly: What if he never saw Antonio again? He didn't think about those things. He couldn't, as if he were not allowed to. He kept his eyes focused on a small pebble that bounced in the truck bed as it rumbled over the road as he listened to Tino's ongoing game of eye-spy with Berwald, the final man in the back of the truck.
"Eye-spy something... brown. And... big? I don't know, it is sort of big, compared to most things it's-"
"'T's th't rock ov'r there." He cut the boy off.
"Yep."
Berwald had guessed everything correctly so far, and Lovino could tell that Tino was getting a little bored with his little game.
"Are you two done yet? There's nothing out here but dead trees and dirt to spy, and it's getting a little annoying." Lovino knew that 'Denmark' couldn't be this man's real name, much like 'Finland' wasn't Tino's, but that's what they called him.
"Denmark, will you let that boy have some fun." It was the soft voice from inside the truck again.
"Hey! I'm not a boy, I'm not any younger than the rest of you guys!"
"You keep telling yourself that, Finny." This voice also came from inside the truck, but it wasn't the same soft one as before.
"Meester Berwald," Tino whined, "tell them I'm not a boy."
"Y' look l'ke a boy t' me."
"You know what I mean!"
Wastelanders were so weird. Lovino furrowed his eyebrows together. He couldn't believe he had been kidnapped by this group of fools. How? He couldn't quite remember. He thought of what he could, he remembered standing by his rock, looking over the river and hearing the roar of the truck's engine. Then... then what? He woke up in binds. What had they done to him? How long had he been out? What was with these accents? The questions didn't end, and anger and fear wisped around his mind, mingling together the longer he spent in the truck with these idiots.
Not to mention that the ropes around his wrists were burning his skin with every bounce of the truck. With each wince of pain, he regretted struggling with the ropes more and more. His skin had worn raw and red, and it wouldn't be long before he had to deal with blood.
"Hey!" He regretted the interjection the moment it came out of his mouth. Swallowing, he forced himself to continue as three heads turned his way. "Can one of you cretini cut these ropes off?" He held his arms out to display his worn wrists.
Denmark and Tino looked at him with confusion, while Berwald maintained a straight face.
"Did ya hear that, Nor?"
"Yeah," Came the reply, but that was it.
Denmark shrugged, pulling the jagged knife from his belt and kneeling down to Lovino's level. He slid the shiny metal between Lovino's wrists and yanked it up, tearing the rope apart and making Lovino wince.
"Don't try anything, ya hear me?"
Lovino scoffed, fearful yet determined to appear tuff. "Like I could." He gestured toward his collar.
"Right." Denmark seemed to be at a loss for words, as if this situation was unfamiliar to him. He stood back up, his hands on his hips as he stood proud and dominant over Lovino's comparatively small form, until the truck hit a bump in the road, nearly tipping the man over and forcing him to reach to the siding for support. Tino snickered.
"I heard that!" He barked at Tino, scaring the poor boy.
"Hey Den, you seem really on edge today. What's gotten into you?" The soft voice sounded from inside the truck again, shouting to be heard over the wind. Denmark stomped the couple of feet to the window carefully, mindful of any bumps the truck made from here on out. He rested his arms on the frame of the truck's missing back windshield, crossing one leg over the other as he leaned his head into the truck to continue the conversation without having to shout. Lovino couldn't hear most of it, but he told himself that he didn't really care. He put his free arms around his legs, pulling himself into a ball.
The tuck raddled beneath him for what must have been hours; he waited in silence while his kidnappers carried on conversations like he wasn't even there. At some point, Tino had attempted talking with him, but Lovino wasn't having any of it. He sat and he waited. He waited for this ride to be over. He waited to know his destination, his fate. He waited for this dream to be over so that he could wake from this nightmare. He waited for his Spaniard to swoop in and rescue him like he had those long days ago in the vault. Hours passed and none of those things happened, and Lovino was starting to doubt that they ever would. The hope of waking from his nightmare began to fade, and hopes of seeing Antonio dwindled as well. He knew his new life was too good to be true. He knew it, but he still believed that he had a chance. He believed that he could have made it in the wasteland at Antonio's side. But no, he slowly began to accept what was coming. His future was uncertain, after all, who could know what would happen to him from here? He was a slave. He was expendable. However, he did hold on to one fact that did give him hope: he was a vault dweller. He was valuable, one way or another, and he chewed on ways to use that to his advantage as he stared out over the wide stretch of broken highway they traveled over.
Things will work out, he thought. Nothing could be worse than what he was feeling now. Let these slavers dish out everything they had on him; he could take anything at this point. Besides, what was the absolute worst thing they could do to him that they haven't done already? Lovino let out a sigh that was lost in the wind that pulled his hair every which way. He imagined his sigh being buffeted by the strong winds, escaping high above him and floating out of sight while he sat helplessly in the rattling vehicle, encumbered by his new bonds of slavery. There was only one thought that repeated itself in Lovino's mind now, simple but true, as are most things in life when you shed all of the unimportant details. This was not fair.
